As an investor, accounting for all variables (positive and negative) with objectivity is the most effective means of ensuring effective decisions, To buy or not to buy. To sell of not to sell. With so many risks facing this relatively new asset class, being alert and ready for anything is crucial. This is the best way to minimize our downside risk by openly analyzing the risk factors facing Bitcoin, As these risks expand or regress, we can either go more aggressive into a bitcoin position or secure profit before it turns. Be objective and read with purpose, put aside any bias and be critical. Too much irrational psychology is driving this insane price action. This does not take away the fact that bitcoin can very much continue to see increase price action, but it clearly has many risks not being accounted for and discussed. Being an investor is about knowing the risks and discussing them to keep them on our radar to not be blind sided if the asset price reverses. Adversity for this speculative asset still exists. 1) The psychology If we look at the psychological component of bitcoin and how it's being driven/portrayed, bitcoin has been piggy backing on the principles and appearance of Gold, unable to stand its own ground with its own identity. I'm trying to compare bitcoin to gold in terms of psychological penetration for value perspective. For bitcoin to claim TO BE digital gold, it has to pass and survive through different economic cycles and markets, as well as attain mass cultural and economic adoption. Until it passes through its tests and cycles to further validate its existence and thesis, it is a speculative ride. More like fools gold until it proves itself to weather all these risks. Once that occurs, then it can emulate the value of gold as being its digital equivalent. It is not there yet, objectively speaking, that cannot be denied. This is a matter of objective analysis, not driven by any desire for a specific price action. Look also at how it shows itself online as having the appearance of a gold coin. That is validation of the bitcoin ecosystem trying to make bitcoin appear like something it has factually not yet established. It makes bitcoin look like a marketing game more than anything else. Trying to benefit from the physical appearance of Gold, even though it has no physical form, a little conflicting. Why can't bitcoin have its own identify? Why does it have to use the subconscious value of gold for it to be validated? It should find strength on its own. Is that not reasonable of the expectation for an emerging new asset? Bitcoin is thriving off perceived value, not true value. Bitcoin needs internet connection, implying a dependency on technology and natural resources to allow Bitcoin to exist and be held on devices and so on. There seems to be a human desire to always deviate from natural reality, which in my observations always yields undesirable outcomes. There is also a huge psychological flaw I am seeing growing, where people are using the adoption of companies allowing bitcoin as a means of payment on their platform as a value booster for bitcoin. The flaw in this is that it would require people to use it as a currency to actually pay for things/buy from companies for this to validate its value. People aren't using it for that, therefore these actions of allowing bitcoin doesn't add value unless it were for that purpose. So if we simply analyze the way bitcoin users engage with it, we then see it more as an asset, not a form of payment. That diminishes the fundamental value proposal of companies allowing it as a form of payment, since no one is going to use it for that, at least not currently since people are hoping to make it rich instead. 2) Political Risk/Centralized planning Socialism by nature requires centralized planning, which means control over the market to ensure it controls how it sees best to allocate resources, hence centralized. This applies to also having control over the economy which is where the market (the people) have the greatest power to control the collective outcome through collaboration with their accepted means of exchange. If 2020 and still into 2021 has taught hopefully anything enlightening to many, is the clear observation of the amount of control and power over the people and their dynamics the government has. That is centralized planning within the market place, as businesses, workers and consumers should typically produce the desirable dynamics/outcomes, and not the central planner. Now that we've established this centralized reality of our ecosystem, that risk is also expected with bitcoin or crypto. As they behave with a state knows best and centralized planning framework, they desire to control the pieces on their board, the premise of military framework. That is why they still utilize Keynesian economics to fuel this new modern day theory type of economic philosophy in the central banks and government. This requires them to control the variables in the short term to produce short term monetary confidence; look at their fixation on the utilization of GDP and unemployment as their favorable metrics. Using the printing press, they can subsidize employee salaries of businesses not even operating or give new money supply through welfare, EI, CERB, unemployment. They can create the appearance of strong GDP in the short term by printing, and giving money to people to spend. But this doesn't produce productive expenditure, which is the only true way of expanding the economy efficiently and sustainably. Having said that, knowing they behave this way all over the world, how can we so naively assume they wont find a way to squeeze their political and regulatory grips all over Bitcoin? How do we know they wont push it back into the dark web, like China is doing to implement its own digital coin? - https://news.bitcoin.com/big-banks-big-troubles-hsbc-deutsche-societe-and-citi-lay-off-thousands-worldwide/ If USA does one of their own, they don't want to have competition. Plus there's a significant possibility that a significant percentage of all bitcoins are owned by a small group of individuals validated by the ledger. That puts the confidence of the markets currency in the hands of unknowns who can easily impact massive volatile swings in the price. That isn't good if we want it as a currency. Again, from a central planning POV, doesn't seem logical to allow this to dominate or thrive the way they want it to. Governments will do whatever it needs to do, to minimize risks within their plans, especially with the geo-political and social-economic issues occurring globally, and growing. With how much debt and fragility that exists in the global economies, they need to be very careful with how they let the market bring unpredictability to attaining their desirable and "controllable" outcome. Governments can say it doesn't accept it as tax payment. It can also prevent banks from allowing it to be processed or stored with insured protection like regulated fiats. This means the default fiat or form of money will be what it can control and regulate. That is until the very framework changes, which simply the people adopting bitcoin doesn't change that centralized planning reality. This framework currently empowering political power over the market place exists in all 3 major continental economies; North America, Europe, Asia. That is a huge uphill challenge that may not produce the outcome we think, in the face of political and monetary forces. The banking system works on loans, and it is regulated by the government, so yet again another place where most of the money supply comes into the market comes in as regulated fiat. Investing, paying taxes, having a bank account, getting loans; all places of exchange that requires the accepted regulated fiat. Free market having economic power means no political power, therefore no centralized framework. It's 2021, and all of the world’s major governments are deepening and demonstrating their power over the market, clear as day. So this is a massive risk because to control the outcome especially when it's all about votes in the midst of all sorts of chaos (politically, economically, socially), you can't possibly assume a positive development. There is too much unpredictability, that is asking for more chaos in a already massively chaotic present reality. There is no supporting action to validate that it will certainly turn out as the bitcoin holders desire. We are more likely to see governments try and control the crypto ecosystem, to ensure they minimize their risks, after all they do it with everything else. Therefore it would seem as though it's naïve to assume otherwise, after witnessing 2020 and the start of 2021. I don't know why those who talk about bitcoin being decentralized as such a beautiful value to it when the system is more likely to want to control it, then not, that is centralizing it into a political framework. Doesn't seem very outside the system if it depends so heavily on the system to grow its market cap. Extra Sources - “Digital Gold” and Geopolitics: Bitcoin as a Political Risk Haven (forbes.com) - Effects of the Geopolitical Risks on Bitcoin Returns and Volatility | Request PDF (researchgate.net) - This Is Who Controls Bitcoin (forbes.com) - Bitcoin’s Network Operations Are Controlled by Five Companies - Bloomberg - Regulation of Cryptocurrency Around the World (loc.gov) - Is Bitcoin the Answer in a Financial Crisis? (thebalance.com) 2) Monetary point of view/ Currency or asset? From a monetary and economic POV, to allow an asset (since it is being held like an asset not a currency) to be utilized in the ecosystem as a primary currency, is just confusing when trying to observe the intent in relation to what is actually being done with bitcoin. We need to ensure that what we implement is reliable and dependable, or else we are attempting yet again another experiment, which is what the government did when it went off the gold standard and now look at the economic disaster we are in. Human ego and greed allowed to deviate the collective from natural and sustainable progression, seems to cause so much social economic chaos. Also, as a form of currency, it would be equivalent to a fiat since it is not backed either. Another conflicting argument that is made about it. The hedge against fiats is also a fiat, the only difference is that it is a digital fiat. This is why I believe in bitcoin if it is backed within a monetary framework that makes sense, because things that are not backed in the modern age of monetary theories, are at almost certain risk of greed and/or human ignorance to be abused. Being backed helps to alleviate those psychological risks. How the collective operates should be founded on principles of reality to ensure sustainability, a logical desire to minimize consequences on the collective. So that is another monetary argument often used that doesn't appear to make much sense to me. It is as thought human desire for price action to make money has taken the purpose of bitcoin on a different route than its original intent. Remember also, for an ecosystem to utilize a standard form of exchange, there needs to be predictability in the price of bitcoin, and it cannot be volatile like it currently is. How do we create a proper system of exchange with something like bitcoin that changes price by multitudes of % on a daily basis? Doesn't seem very logical. The economy cannot exchange goods and services with that volatility. It also has a slow transaction capability which fuels the risk of what happens if there is a better improved version Bitcoin 2.0 that solves that problem? Mass exodus to 2.0? It needs to be stable as a means of value for it to be utilized as desired. Why isn't the focus on how to actually implement it and make it a relevant currency that can be utilized? Shouldn't we focus more on the actual utility of it rather than the price action? Greed appears to be driving this more than anything else. Forking bitcoin into new branches can easily be done and centralized, basically replicating the dilution of money supply. So even if bitcoin itself is finite to 21 million, the crypto ecosystem can expand and fork in countless possible ways. So, theoretically, that finite component can be circumvented, by constantly forking bitcoin into new forms, which would only devalue bitcoin itself. The entire crypto space is at heavy risk of this possibility since there are limitless possible new coins that can be created. And would be insane to back a digital fiat by another fiat. That's absolutely redundant. This does not solve the fiat issue. When you look at social media, the very community also mocks and laughs at those who use and or used bitcoin as a means of exchange (like its supposed purpose) for payment. Isn't that the whole purpose of it? Yet they create a sense of don't ever sell just hold, well then when will anyone actually use it as a currency when using it as a currency seems wrong within the crypto community. Seems more like greed for price action than about the beauty of its utility. That also expands the negative gap within the fundamental framework of bitcoin. People want it to be an asset while arguing monetary purposes. Its conflicting logic and only brings more unknown to the outcome of this asset. And I call it an asset because people treat it that way. Is bitcoin and what it is currently versus its original purpose a risk we are yet again willing to take? If you say yes, is that an objective stance or a desire? Does it make sense for the collective when we already have so many problems? Extra Sources - (PDF) Bitcoin - Asset or currency? Revealing users' hidden intentions (researchgate.net) - Bitcoin Is An Asset, Not A Currency (forbes.com) - BitcoinAsset?.pptx (nyu.edu) 3) Storage of Value (SoV) Proposal For this section we will utilize references directly from Bitcoin.com to highlight the very plausible argument for this value proposal: "Over the last few years, many have claimed that bitcoin core (BTC) has turned into, or will soon become, a store of value (SoV). Proponents of the BTC-based SoV theory seem to think that money can somehow store value and if it’s held long enough, the price will be higher or predictably useful when spent at a later date. This is an economic fallacy however because money cannot store value and, as innovative as bitcoin is, it will never be immune to market influences. There are a ton of people who believe that BTC is a store of value and that if they keep hodling someday they might be super wealthy and protected from the world’s turbulent economy. Except this couldn’t be further from the truth. BTC is not an SoV currently, and never will be due to the fact that money itself cannot be an SoV. The idea that money cannot serve as a store of value has been written about by many economists over the years including Carl Menger, Murray Rothbard, and Ludwig von Mises. Carl Menger (1840-1921) was the founder of the Austrian school of economics proper. Menger was one of the first economists to explain in detail about the relationship of value and money to market prices. Menger writes in Principles of Economics: Value is … nothing inherent in goods, no property of them, but merely the importance that we first attribute to the satisfaction of our needs … and in consequence carry over to economic goods as the … causes of the satisfaction of our needs." - https://news.bitcoin.com/putting-an-end-to-the-bitcoin-store-of-value-fallacy/ 3) Sustainability Risk “Currently, the tool estimates that Bitcoin is using around seven gigawatts of electricity, equal to 0.21% of the world's supply. That is as much power as would be generated by seven Dungeness nuclear power plants at once. Over the course of a year, this equates to roughly the same power consumption as Switzerland.” “Mr de Vries said that Bitcoin still appears to use far more energy per transaction than all the world's banks put together, when considering the amount of energy used by data centres. The electricity used for Bitcoin produces about 22 megatons of CO2 annually, a study in the scientific journal Joule estimated. That is as much as Kansas City in the US.” - Bitcoin's energy consumption 'equals that of Switzerland' - BBC News Published 3 July 2019 Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index - https://cbeci.org/ - https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption As of Jan 14, 2021 Theoretical lower bound: 4.86 GW - 39.39 TWh Estimated 13.73 GW - Annualised consumption 111.27TWh Theoretical upper bound: 32.58 GW - 263.97TWh "Bitcoin may be a useful way to send and receive money, but cryptocurrency isn't created for free. The community of computer-based miners that create bitcoins uses vast quantities of electrical power in the process. The electricity-heavy process has led some experts to suggest that bitcoin isn’t an environmentally friendly endeavor. So how much electricity does a bitcoin take to produce? Written testimony presented to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in August 2018 claims that bitcoin mining accounts for about 1% of the world's energy consumption." "If this information is correct, the bitcoin network in 2020 consumes 120 gigawatts (GW) per second. This converts to about 63 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year. This staggering amount of power is the equivalent of 156 million horses (1.3 million horses per GW) or 49,440 wind turbines (412 turbines per GW) generating power at peak production per second." - How Much Power Does It Take to Create a Bitcoin? (thebalance.com) Sustainability is becoming more and more an important variable in human actions in order to ensure we are more balanced with our natural world. It is something humans have neglected for a long time, having disconnected from nature and their relationship to the natural world. If it is an important factor in our development forward, then we need to look at bitcoin from a sustainability POV to ensure it falls within acceptable parameters of our desired intent. Greed and desire for wealth cannot deviate the objectivity of our desired outcome as a collective. We can argue for sure, let's create a renewable source of energy to produce what is needed for the bitcoin ecosystem, which only demands more energy as it expands and becomes harder for bitcoins to come into existence. The flaw I can see in this is that, how much land are we willing to permanently use up in order to ensure this ecosystem exists indefinitely? Because if the ecosystem needs energy indefinitely for it to exist, then we are not allowing the land to replenish. When compared to gold for example, once the gold is mined and extracted, no extra energy is needed to keep it into existence. Gold has a one time cost, and once the land is done being mined, we can nourish the soil and seek to give it back to the planet to heal and replenish new minerals and life for the future of the planet. Our actions need to be aligned with the timeline of humanity beyond the years we are in existence. Beyond our own existence. To be sustainable, one must think linear into the future beyond the parameters of one's personal life span. Greed thrives at the personal level which makes one ignore time beyond their lifespan. Does bitcoin pass this test of sustainability? To answer this, the price of bitcoin and personal desire for wealth from it has to be put aside, and objectivity to the purpose of this question must be given. Extra Sources - Bitcoin Mining Energy Usage: The Good, the Bad and the Future (coincentral.com) - Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index - Digiconomist - (PDF) Energy Consumption of Bitcoin Mining (researchgate.net) - Cryptocurrency Energy Consumption | Energy Institute (umich.edu) 4) Time & Depression Resistance This risk breaks down into 3 factors that don't appear to be accounted for. 1 - Will bitcoin survive time? An 11 year story is not very much evidence that it can pass the test of time. For context, its rival Gold for example has 6000 years of history and purpose. It has been at the side of human civilization expansion, so we know it is reliable, it has history to validate this, alongside universal acceptance, 2 - Will it survive the transition of wealth between generations? Because the psychology of generations is heavily impacting the adoption of bitcoin and other cryptos, what says that very psychological adoption is also not a risk that could cause a future generation to say they rather their own version of a crypto they feel more connected to and believe is not owned by the older generations, since the clash between youth and old seems to be an old tale. Since this asset or currency, whatever you wish to call it for now, is so easily driven and influenced by perceived value. That can easily change. Its current baseline is one based on pure psychology; greed and fomo. 3 - Will bitcoin survive a plausible depression occurring in North America and all over the world? This is also a very important risk not being mentioned. In a depression, people struggle financially and debt also becomes a significant issue. The question becomes, does bitcoin survive in a depression environment which is not a macro environment it has yet to experience. If it collapses in that environment, then it holds as a risk asset correlated to the debt expansion of the ecosystem. If it could hold true and strong through that environment, especially with the potential deflationary environment, then this could be a significant fundamental boost. To be determined soon enough. 5) Hacking & Theft I myself am not a tech wizard, and this specific risk is very real. It posses a risk to the adoption of bitcoin. This could drive people to only wanting exposure to bitcoin within financial products created by institutions, which solidifies it further as an asset and less so as something that could be used as a currency, which is the original thesis and value proposal. Also, makes the coin more and more centralized in the very system that it seeks to be outside of. Stealing the private keys to gain access to a wallet. - "Blockchain, the Bitcoin public ledger, maintains a record of all the addresses and a certain value is then attached to the particular key that identifies each record. So, when someone owns Bitcoin, what they actually have is the private key for unlocking a particular address on the Blockchain. These keys are stored both online and offline in so many different ways and each of them has a certain security level. Nevertheless, they all are vulnerable because, as you want to know how to hack a Bitcoin wallet, all you have to do is to somehow access that character's string which forms the private key." Keyloggers: - "It’s the malware that records the keystrokes of the users and sends it all to the hacker. It is almost impossible to detect these programs and you might even have it running on your smartphone or computer right now without noticing it at all. They copy every seed, password and pin that you type and can turn out to be an effective answer to the question of how to hack a Bitcoin faucet. They can really provide hackers an easy gateway to all the bitcoins they want to hack." Fake wallets: - "Another cool option you have to answer how to hack Bitcoin wallets, this one gives you a more sophisticated way of achieving your goal. It also needs you to do some work on your part as these fake wallets are simply the apps which resemble genuine wallets but are meant to steal the Bitcoins away. These apps typically use official logos and everything else of existing Bitcoin wallets for tricking the users and stealing the Bitcoins away. These fake wallets are a routine thing both on Apple and Android App Stores." Bitcoin miner malware. - "Today, Bitcoin is simply mined through the biggest Bitcoin malware botnets. Though they don’t have any negative intentions, still the use of a computer this way is not authorized as they tend to hijack the online video equipment and the victim bears all the cost. As a result, the hijacked computers are also slowed down as well." Transfer Trojans - "Another option available to those looking to find out how to hack a Bitcoin address is to transfer Trojans and simply get Bitcoins transferred to their personal wallets. The cryptocurrency Trojans are meant to monitor computers and wait for anything that looks like a crypto account number. And, as soon as they spot one, they take action and replace the user’s intended account from that of the hacker and as soon as the user hits that ‘Send’ button, all the funds are transferred to the account of the hacker. Again, there’s no recovering from this either." https://u.today/guides/blockchain/how-to-hack-bitcoin-all-possible-ways#:~:text=%20How%20to%20Hack%20Bitcoin%3A%20All%20Possible%20Ways,option%20is%20to%20rely%20on%20some...%20More%20 6) Innovation The very innovative nature of technology is a threat to the continuity of bitcoin, for it is primitive in the face of technological advancement. With it being 11 years old only, it could find a new and improved bitcoin version in a decade that steals all the attention away, since its value is based on to the incredible tech that is blockchain, which is innovative by nature. Therefore innovation itself is a risk to this primitive digital coin. Well then logically speaking, if we maintain that thesis, we should seek to allocate the capital to the new and improved version, not simply hold it for sentimental purpose. That is a threat moving forward. Based on tech in a world where human are obsessed with innovating tech (diminishes the utility value purpose of the original bitcoin), therefore, the very nature of what makes bitcoin so incredible is also what could make it obsolete. That's a significant risk. @nictartaglia come discuss this with me come challenge these risks with me

General Breakdown You may have heard about bitcoin and all its volatility, but does anyone really know what bitcoin is? Beyond what it appears to be or do? If you check the bitcoin website itself; www.bitcoin.com - as a starting point on this learning journey, it would say “Bitcoin is an innovative payment network”. In the simplest of terms, bitcoin is a software, a set of protocols and processes which enables a new form of trustless electronic payment. So in an even simpler form, Bitcoin is a super precise transaction ledger able to keep transactions categorized chronologically, which then goes through a mining process which validates each transaction without the need of a third party. This is without a doubt innovative and of extreme relevance to minimize external parties to a simple transaction. "We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Each owner transfers the coin to the next by digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner and adding these to the end of the coin. A payee can verify the signatures to verify the chain of ownership. The problem of course is the payee can't verify that one of the owners did not double-spend the coin. A common solution is to introduce a trusted central authority, or mint, that checks every transaction for double spending. After each transaction, the coin must be returned to the mint to issue a new coin, and only coins issued directly from the mint are trusted not to be double-spent. The problem with this solution is that the fate of the entire money system depends on the company running the mint, with every transaction having to go through them, just like a bank. We need a way for the payee to know that the previous owners did not sign any earlier transactions. For our purposes, the earliest transaction is the one that counts, so we don't care about later attempts to double-spend. The only way to confirm the absence of a transaction is to be aware of all transactions. In the mint based model, the mint was aware of all transactions and decided which arrived first. To accomplish this without a trusted party, transactions must be publicly announced, and we need a system for participants to agree on a single history of the order in which they were received. The payee needs proof that at the time of each transaction, the majority of nodes agreed it was the first received. " - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf (original White paper of Bitcoin) The blockchain, while used in a decentralized manner allows for transactions to take place with no third party needed. Instead of a bank or financial institution confirming your transactions, it would be a bitcoin miner validating the transaction over the internet. Bitcoin miners run complex computers to solve complicated puzzles in an effort to confirm groups of transactions called blocks; once the block is successfully confirmed, these blocks are added to the blockchain record which in turn make them irreversible. The minors are then rewarded with a small amount of Bitcoin for this process. This provides incentives Miners who secure the Bitcoin blockchain get incentivized to do so, but there will come a time that the miners will no longer be able to be paid in new bitcoin. A set amount of 21 million Bitcoin will ever be produced. Once the 21 millionth bitcoin is produced the miners will no longer be getting paid in new bitcoin, but will be incentivized via the transaction fees attached to the transfers of bitcoin from wallet to wallet. Now this is good for two things. Number one the miners will be paid to continue being rewarded for validating transactions (this allows for indefinite securitization) after the mining is done which in turn secures the network indefinitely. Secondly we have the scarcity component. In the case of Satoshi’s vision for bitcoin, the scarcity aspect of bitcoin has no advantages hence why in the original white paper, there is no mention of scarcity or total mention of bitcoins. In my opinion, I think particularly because the fact that there are 21 million bitcoins is the reason why there will not be mass adoption of the crypto. If you’ve ever bought fragments of a bitcoin you’d know that it is very complicated to calculate your exchange only in Bitcoin. That's why most apps or websites of exchanges have it pre-set in fiat so it is easier/clearer to perform a bitcoin exchange. But now, if you were to look at bitcoin as a storage of value (SoV), the scarcity aspect can help induce people to buy the coin; rarity which drives human desire and psychology. Beauty is something that respects the law of scarcity. A purely psychological benefit if bitcoin we’re to be used as a storage of value instead of a means of exchange. This Bitcoin network runs on something called the blockchain. The blockchain is a protocol that consists of a single chain of discrete blocks of information, arranged chronologically. The information stored on the blocks are irreversible and can be any string of 1’s and 0’s, meaning it could include emails, contracts, land titles, marriage certificates, or bond trades. In theory, any type of contract between two parties can be established on a blockchain as long as both parties agree on the contract, but for now the most common use of the blockchain is as a ledger (a list of transactions). So no one should be able to deny the future power of this innovative ecosystem, for this has given us a stepping stone on which to begin the optimization of contract and payment dynamics. Since bitcoin is decentralized, in the sense it simply needs the peers who seek to exchange and the blockchain to validate the transactions. There are no central banks to govern the currency. It would help stop artificial inflation and allow for a slow organic inflation (assuming forking and other cryptos do not get bundled up which creates an expanding and diluting basket of cryptos). Original White Paper Thesis Let us now bring it back to its origins to contextualize its original thesis. Bitcoin was created by some character named Satoshi Nakamoto. Back in 2008 Satoshi published something called the Bitcoin White paper - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf . This white paper explains what bitcoin's original thesis by its creator is, how it works and what its main uses are to be. This gives us the starting point of our journey into understanding bitcoin. “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.” That is the first sentence of the paper, which means that Mr. Nakamoto intended Bitcoin to be used as some sort of global currency, to provide a simpler and more efficient and trusted means of exchange. This is where we can conclude that a lot of people get confused with the original value of bitcoin. If bitcoin was intended to be used as a currency, why is the motto in the crypto world HODL? And why do people expect crazy price targets of 100’s of thousands of dollars which is the desire of an asset price inflation, not a currency? Bitcoin may reach those prices because anything is possible in these new markets, but is that really sustainable for the actual job it was intended to do? In my opinion, I think not. This negative analysis will be narrowed in more depth with PART 2 of this Bitcoin piece. Looking at bitcoin and its innovative solution is not something anyone should toss aside, for it is a significant value proposal. But how we choose to approach that proposal is up to us based on how we interact with it, within our collective ecosystem. Another benefit of bitcoin being used within the perspective of a currency is if you try to compare it to the euro, you see the euro unites a singular geographical location with many intersecting trade interests. This currency unification lowers barriers to trade amongst its members but also allows for the sharing of social/economic/political risk. For example one EU member nation is experiencing deflationary house prices and the neighbor country’s house prices are skyrocketing. The euro helps dampen the burden on the member nations affected. The pioneer of this theory, Robert Mundell explains it brilliantly in this quote,“ A harvest failure, strikes, or war, in one of the countries causes a loss of real income, but the use of a common currency (or foreign exchange reserves) allows the country to run down its currency holdings and cushion the impact of the loss, drawing on the resources of the other country until the cost of the adjustment has been efficiently spread over the future. If, on the other hand, the two countries use separate monies with flexible exchange rates, the whole loss has to be borne alone; the common currency cannot serve as a shock absorber for the nation as a whole.`` -https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/2010-11/DigitalCurrencies/economics/index.html “First, Bitcoin at its most fundamental level is a breakthrough in computer science – one that builds on 20 years of research into cryptographic currency, and 40 years of research in cryptography, by thousands of researchers around the world. Bitcoin is the first practical solution to a longstanding problem in computer science called the Byzantine Generals Problem. To quote from the original paper defining the B.G.P.: “[Imagine] a group of generals of the Byzantine army camped with their troops around an enemy city. Communicating only by messenger, the generals must agree upon a common battle plan. However, one or more of them may be traitors who will try to confuse the others. The problem is to find an algorithm to ensure that the loyal generals will reach agreement.” More generally, the B.G.P. poses the question of how to establish trust between otherwise unrelated parties over an untrusted network like the Internet. The practical consequence of solving this problem is that Bitcoin gives us, for the first time, a way for one Internet user to transfer a unique piece of digital property to another Internet user, such that the transfer is guaranteed to be safe and secure, everyone knows that the transfer has taken place, and nobody can challenge the legitimacy of the transfer. The consequences of this breakthrough are hard to overstate.” - https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/why-bitcoin-matters/ "The scripting language can also unlock transactions based on other parameters. Unlocking them over time can enable automatic mortgage, trust, and allowance payouts. Unlocking them on guessable numbers creates a lottery auditable by third parties." - https://nav.al/bitcoin-the-internet-of-money Extra Reading Sources https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/why-bitcoin-matters/ Original White Paper PDF - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf www.bitcoin.com https://sevenfigurepublishing.com/2014/02/11/bitcoin-the-whole-story/

This piece serves the purpose of attempting to contextualize humanities economic and monetary expansion in relation to gold. Part 2 and 3 of this 3 part piece are formed as a sort of jenga puzzle with dates and historical text from a variety of sources (listed at the end), all intertwined in chronological order to provide as much debt to this dance played between humanity and gold. This should help to facilitate the understanding of humanities economic expansion, by having a common standard means of exchange respected by humans throughout cultures and time. There lays its value, to prevail regardless of time and place. The introduction & philosophical analysis In business, when someone or something serves a purpose with very little downside risk, and can allow reliable delegation of certain tasks, it more than not allows an economic entity (a person, a business, a nation), to optimize and or expand their output. Either way, it is a win win, for both the business and the stakeholders win (consumers, employees, investors), from better services, prices, salaries, profits, therefore it is a no brainer to employ that individual or incorporate that system/framework towards that achievement. It does exactly what you want it to do, therefore the business' mind can focus more on weighing other variables that need its attention. Even from how we focus on our mind, as individuals or as a collective, it respects the principles of scarcity, we can only focus on so much at a given time. It appears we are always incurring drastic chaotic cycles with a lot of social conflict from our monetary deviations, from centralized egos. An old tale of history. This can allow any economic entity to enter a spear form of framework to penetrate and expand the way it desires. Like genes as they get passed on, that pick up and incorporate strong genes for the purpose of strong continuity. A very reliable part of natural law for natural expansion. If life itself is an economic game of producing, consuming and allocating resources (physiological or tangible), for all nations, businesses and persons, then incorporating those very dynamic truths into our collective economic framework is not flawed. Economic alignment is necessary among the countless frameworks of entities that are consciously and unconsciously playing this game. That makes it a very dynamic and complex game. So why not adapt behaviors/frameworks/pillars that we can depend on despite those difficult truths of the game. Being rational is very much about respecting natural law, since it dictates the very reality and parameters of our conscious lives. This ties in to the principle ideology of a 'homoeconomicus' is: -"Homo economicus is a financial term that some economists use to describe a rational human being. Homo economicus is a model for human behavior, characterized by an infinite capability to make rational decisions. The model is generally used in economics and was first proposed by John Stuart Mills in an 1836 essay defining the characteristics of political economy. Modern research has proved that the theory of an economic man is a flawed model." -Homo Economicus Definition (investopedia.com) This requires a malleable framework, since that is rational at the same time. This is to be as Bruce Lee so beautifully said; “you must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” Water with enough energy (pressure) asserted on it can also become deadly like a spear piercing through flesh. What natural law tells us is time doesn't stop, and because nothing is fixed like time itself, everything changes, and therefore malleability is an important component of a dynamic natural ecosystem. The expansion of humanity and its collective consciousness, shows nothing but change from constant clashing egos and realities. It is rational to always assume and expect change. Using gold to anchor our economic behaviors appears to be a dire solution that diminishes the ability of human ego and ignorance to thrive and cause sustainability problems witnessed throughout the history of civilization. Gold is like an anchor to all that dynamic change, economically speaking. 6000 years of history demonstrates a beautiful story that provides an old progressive solution to a very relevant problem. Let's make use of it so we can go solve other problems that plague our system. Now having established that rationale, respecting natural law, if we observed the relationship gold played with humanity, we see a positive correlation...lets take that further now. If that has always been humanity's most reliable form of exchange that provided sustainable value until the mid 20th century of our globalized expansion, then why is any human trying to apply their personal desire of altering that very truth? Seems like ego rather than anything else, another old tale of history. Gold has been loved, desired and utilized across time in correlation with our expansion. That makes it incredibly reliable by simply back testing our history. It also makes it a mean (average) baseline off which humanities economic expansion can occur. It provides a constant baseline off which natural wealth can truly expand. This is a key dynamic relationship towards having a viable, flexible and sustainable expanding economy. Sure sounds a lot like what a rational mind would incorporate into their framework to ensure optimal output. Would seem rational for a trusting and functional global economy, with so many dynamic variables, such as all the social problems it has, to trust a monetary framework that has pierced through time alongside us. Every time people deviated from it, it was in my opinion heavily from the centralized personal interest of a select few; greed, to obtain something more for the benefit of the few, at any cost. Human suffering most often than not appears to be that cost that history keeps trying to teach. Bon, that's history, we are now in 2020, whatever our ancestors past digressions were, nothing but a lesson can be picked up from it’s tale. That's what a rational civilization must do, be flexible like water. This is where also lays the power of a free market, respecting these principles. These are what yields sustainable behaviors, as a collective, providing an ecosystem framework that trickles down to its very operators (the citizens, who’s collective actions dictate the collective output). The stakeholders can truly benefit on a collective scale. Sustainability is very much part of that since humans cannot over indulge from the abuse of monetary egos that deviate a nation to their whim. Can be correlated, to the expansion of the consumeristic reality leveraged off the debt from deviations in economic truths. . It would be useful for establishing how far off a nation's economy can deviate from its baseline wealth and truly take on debt. Bring some sustainability to our consumerist framework. Again, a possible natural solution to a behavioral problem plaguing our reality. The argument isn't that we can’t find a better way to improve our globalized dynamic monetary system, or that gold is the only forever answer and so ignore everything else. Not at all. Simply, why not find a way to play off of something that is reliable, that creates like in technical analysis, a strong resistance from which the price can increase (economic expansion). Far less down side economically and socially speaking since we know it works, when so much isn't working. Let us finally move on. From an optimal perspective, it serves the purpose. I do accept the idea of bitcoin being backed by gold or a basket of metals, it seems more logical as a system to expand sustainability leveraging what works. Or would you rather continue the game of experimenting with economies which history shows it always has untold and unintended consequences. From a healthy and sustainable point of view, it doesn't seem to be an irrational idea to incorporate the principles of water which is shapeless yet also capable of acting like a spear; the desire of our economic expansion.

Truly this generational transfer is equivalent to the representation of atlas, taking on the weight and burden of the heavens. "In Greek mythology, the Titan Atlas was responsible for bearing the weight of the heavens on his shoulders, a burden given to him as punishment by Zeus. Father of many stars and a protagonist in one of Hercules’ famous labours, Atlas was also known as a wise man and the founder of astronomy. For Plato, he was the eponymous first king of Atlantis, and this giant of a god also gave his name to a huge mountain range in northern Africa, the great Atlantic Ocean and any large collection of maps. With a name perhaps conveying the meaning 'suffering' or ‘very enduring,’" - Atlas - Ancient History Encyclopedia At a collective generational level, boomers have had that responsibility, but that torch is about to be transferred over the next 2 decades roughly. The world is about to experience one of the most incredible and difficult transitions of wealth and responsibilities in relation to the wealth that has been produced as a result of the system's complexity. That includes the burden that is tied to that wealth. In the perspective of a millennial who is in love with macro dynamic trends, looking out long term, I wish to bring to light the darkness to get the conversation rolling about isolating the probable solutions to alleviating that darkness, to minimize the downside impact of a very probable outlook for the ecosystem. Something Millennials will heavily be intertwined with, as boomers are retiring and passing on from this ecosystem. Millennials need to start weighing their personal reality in relation to the collective reality in a more balanced way. This requires us to understand the dynamic structure of an economic ecosystem. The future of the ecosystem like our future children depend on this realization. Some macro themes and trends: Millennial Economic Ignorance The over leveraged global financial system could potentially trigger one of the greatest domino effects, in terms of wealth destruction and economic regression ever seen in humanities history, in terms of boom and bust. There is a first for everything. Time moves linearly (never stops), and boomers have produced a generation that although very intelligent, appears to have forgotten that wisdom, heavily due to lack of real life experience (their ideologies support this), and parents trying to shelter them too much. Their understanding of reality's complexities is taken far too granted. Their ego, and false sense of being wise beyond their years is matched only by their insatiable desire for quick, short term results. A very greedy and materialistic generation. These are behaviors that are not positive for the collective progression. What we are about to inherit as a generation, will require a framework and behavior very scarce in the younger generations - millennials and younger. Patience, collaboration, alignment and endurement will be our greatest test as a generation. Like the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. A piece of wisdom that could very much describe the economic reality looking out 10-20 years, as the negative is also inherited with the wealth, which has been heavily artificially created through the abuse of the modern monetary system abused over the last couple decades. Look at the stock market as of Dec 2020, pushing all time highs non stop from stimulus and QE. QE is quantitative easing which is when The FED buys financial products, like it did in 2020 and in the 2008 financial crash (diagram to follow to demonstrate on a chart). This helps maintain afloat the asset classes to hold the appearance of wealth to reassure confidence in the economy. Not a healthy way to do this though as 2020 is highlighting. Near 0% interest rates supporting the real estate bubble and consumerism. This matters because it correlates to the power of the currency of that ecosystem. Just need to go look at Japan and Europe's economic history to see the similar reality of sequences happening in North America now. The upper level wealth is tied to a multiple in relation to the productivity of the economies. There will be a time when that wealth begins to transfer down to newer generations (because older generations will pass on from this reality), and there lays a significant economic problem that comes to light. What is the productive output of younger generations in order to come close to maintaining this insane delusional use of our manipulated economic ecosystem. It has beyond deviated from the natural law of economic philosophy’. That only expands with younger generational understanding of economics and money. It is so incredibly over leveraged, and requires people to work and work a lot. Truly this is the complete opposite of millennials intent, and newer younger generations. They want more money faster, with less work and more time to have fun. That thesis is the last extreme pillar to kick into effect if all else doesn’t, in terms of triggering a domino effect in the economy. There will be a fracture soon that sets off the dominos. Which one, is a question too complex and new to truly pinpoint (as a collective consensus). But millennials are not yet leaders in any shape or form, and their comprehension of reality lacks an incredible amount of experience. To burden the debt of the economic and political ecosystems with this much problems, does yield confidence, further hurting the power of the North American economy. A generation more divided within itself than any other.............. how can that possibly yield a logical positive outcome once it is fully inherited. Millennials haven't had the possibility to make mistakes in the ecosystem outside of an educational system which we all agree does not represent life or the complexities of our civilization. The Millennials will eventually replace the leaders in politics and in the economy. That is one dangerous and scary outlook. Because those two sectors have an overall impact on the systems dynamics. How we end up leading and with which ideological framework it is applied will matter gravely. An inflated ego + very little life experience, with all other economic negatives does not equate to a trending desirable outcome. Some financial/economic charts and data - $30 Trillion USD of National debt. This is nothing compared to where it will be in the next 3-5 years pre-covid economic reality. The more we inflate and debase the currency, the more we need to print each time to solve economic problems. Exponential growth of our debt is reaching its final stretch. - A very dominant metric used by the government to illustrate economic prosperity is using GDP and employment, but what they don't share is how these metrics can be artificially inflated through an over leveraged ecosystem such as North America by abusing the modern monetary system, such as printing fiat endlessly. - Near 0% interest rates alongside Europe and Japan. The financial system globally is so fragile, raising rates would cause short term pain and asset deflation, but would allow us to start healing and optimizing the economic reality. Because of political games, and very little realization of healthy economic principles at the heart of an ecosystem, Politicians rather bandage and defer problems, something Millennials appear to fuel ignorantly. We not only borrow from the future causing current problems, but we then also defer the issues to the later generations. Talk about greed and selfishness. Where's the traditional value of wanting to give a better life to our youth? These behaviors do not support that belief in any way. - Stock market and real estate bubbles - evaluations that beyond deviate from fundamentals - again why gold appreciates as fiats devalue from loss of confidence, which is very important with a fiat system. Fiat is "a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort' - Merriem-Webster. Global currencies are fiats with no backing of any kind, unlike most of mankind's history, utilizing silver and gold as a standard mean. Millennials are acting like stocks are a consumer goods product and just buy from FOMO, Mania and short term riches. That is not good for an investor who seeks long term strategic opportunities. - A growing and expanding Asian economic presence on the global economy which could diminish North America's economic power on the global stage. less confidence becomes a consequence on their fiat. - Stagnating wages. While there is inflation, this produces marginalized economic prosperity, since accumulating and holding onto resources continues to become harder and harder. - Less understanding of the system's complexities - thus a higher probability of social and political conflict negatively impacting the economy - Social and political ideologies that are further on the left spectrum which is negative on economic growth and sustainability. This results in further economic centralization within the government social structure, therefore minimizing the future potential of the productive labor market by suppressing its economic pursuit. Millennials are fueling these ideologies, look at 202o to validate this reality. This comes with more: 1) more bureaucracy 2) more regulations 3) more policies 4) more social problems and division - ie, poor education, more mental problems such as depression and suicide, more crimes, more inter city conflict, destruction of property. 5) more taxation - keep less of your produced capital 6) more inflation - higher cost of living keeping less of your produced capital 7) more monetary abuse - printing money to pay off other debts, for every political and social problem that arises by taking resources from the future labor market, who never gave consent to this abuse. 8) more unemployment 9) less business innovation and competition 10) more currency debasement from loss of currency confidence- US dollar at 2.5 year all time low. 11) EVENTUAL economic collapse These are all very negative economic variables with a generation who has far less financial and economic comprehension and experience. The left is far heavily favored by Millennials, who do not understand the economic and historical reality of these ideologies that have already cycled through our ecosystems over the last century. Other than our tech savviness, and entrepreneurial spirit which is being squashed by political regulation and policies, and social division, what more do millennials have to offer? What collective behaviors do we have as a generation that are positive and sustainably progressive for the overall health of the entire ecosystem, and not just for the select few? Political ideologies do not mix with economics, like water and oil. They often leverage social problems to further encroach their authority on the ecosystem. It does so by controlling the ecosystem's resources. It is an economic game after all, all living organisms are playing this game. A human, a business or the government, the same economic game rules exist. Issue is, only one is diminishing the ability for the common man to play his economic game, that is the government. They are the very causality of the above listed problems, as a consequence of cultural ideologies that trickle up to the political social structure, who use that to fuel good intentions, which ripples into the economy, and suffers from ideological consequences. It is a lot about what feels good and personal experiences rather than utilizing factual collective data to provide overall ecosystem guidance. As one of my teachers from afar (never got to meet him), Milton Friedman would say - "there's nothing that does so much harm as good intentions". Before judging his words, go read about his life and what he has done. His actions will speak for his words. Millennial Economic Actions The reason I provide the above diagram is to highlight a generational behavioral pattern in relation to economic productivity by economic sector breakdown. Boomers are found at every level of this diagram, and that adds to the productive nature of the overall economy. Boomers were more flexible and malleable to their productivity, which is seen in their output. They heavily built the Tertiary sector, supported by Gen-X and even more so now with Millennials and younger generations. As the third expands, the lesser value the primary sector has because there is value in outsourcing that sector to other economies, but as long as the costs don't outweigh the benefits . Clearly a rare occurrence in Millennials is their ability to perform cost analysis of short term actions on their long term outcome. Millennials seem to want to outsource as much work as possible, forgetting that being productive is what makes an economy strong. If we outsource most of the productivity of the economy overseas, to smaller economies, it does cause diminishing economic strength at an overall level. Debt becomes a way to offset that lack of productive nature. I see a trend of weakening Primary and Secondary sectors as Boomers and Gen X move away from the economy. Younger generations focus heavily in the Tertiary Sector. Now as a Millennial, watching social media, school programs that are favored, business and entrepreneurship pursuits, you can see that, at least in North America, they pursue many industries within the Tertiary Sector, such as restaurants, personal training, Influencer (tik Tok, Youtube, Instagram), music and art, leisure and pleasure, hair salons, gym, traveling, hospitality, banking. These industries survive off the productive economic output, which allows people of the ecosystem to afford luxuries and excess spending in this sector. Another primary issue is that many of these industries are fueled through debt, with the economy being so over leveraged. How much of this survives if there's an economic contraction? Many of these industries aren't necessary and of importance to the foundation of a functional economic ecosystem. Millennials don't like labor intensive and long day work, hence their pursuit for quick and easy money to satisfy their short term consumer desires -> material goods, restaurants, traveling, partying. But they want higher wages early off in their careers also at the same time. Most of the Boomer’s wealth took 30 years or a lifetime to produce. Younger generations live in a bubble where they want the Government to create a comfortable and easy life. Never worked that way, unless under socialistic and elite regimes which does that for only a select few who are around the centralized economic power. Using machines and computers to replace the cost and lack of human productivity could also end up hurting our economy. "Demographics do not determine the fate of economic growth, but they are certainly a key determinant for an economy's growth potential. An aging population coupled with a declining birth rate in the developed world points to a decline in future economic growth. Increases in productivity can lessen the impact of such population shifts, and technological advances are the ideal source of productivity boosts. This, however, is a double-edged sword: On one hand, technological progress increases productivity, but at the same time, it can eliminate jobs outright, increasing unemployment. It will be those workers who have computer and technology skills that will excel in the future economy. As the age make-up of the workforce changes in the future, so will the make-up of the kinds of jobs the economy employs.". -How Demographics Drive the Economy (investopedia.com) "We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork." ~ Milton Friedman Millennials fuel this, they want less work while making more money. They defy the natural law of equivalent exchange, by seeking more for less. That very behavior is fueling mania and hype in so many short term driven trends, filled with millennial presence. They want the system and companies to solve more of their social problems, so they can go out, travel and party more. Not very healthy dynamics and trends to help alleviate the problems. "With great power there must also come great responsibility", or simply "With great power comes great responsibility", alternatively known as the Peter Parker principle, is a proverb popularized by the Spider-Man comic books written by Stan Lee, though clearly conceptually dating from 1793, during the French Revolution."" - Wikipedia We are being given the most dynamic and wealthiest global economy to have ever existed on earth. That is a huge responsibility, for it comes with a cost, and hopefully Millennials will work to produce that cost and to reduce the burden to yield a more sustainable ecosystem for the benefit of a healthy civilization before we hope to solve other global and humanitarian problems. The question for ourselves moving forward is; Are we ready? Are we truly productive enough and flexible as a generation to do what must be done to produce a better outcome for all of us? How sustainable is this chaos before it is too late and leaving North America becomes a very necessary reality for future young generations? What can we do to hedge ourselves? individually and collectively.

In Memory of Walter E. Williams, deceased on Dec. 1, 2020. The butterfly effect is akin to the reality of economics. Chaos theory is big with economic ignorance. "In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state." - Wikipedia (focus on the explanation, not the source, don't get distracted by a minute variable. The explanation does the job). Let us move on. This represents the dangers of ignorance in relation to the economic framework of our ecosystem. To deviate from this creates imbalances in the economic ecosystem. Because an efficient economic framework is rooted in natural law, life demands balance. (there lays a primary argument for Gold in our ecosystem). Ying & Yang Life & death Dark & light Happy & sad Pain & pleasure Bad & good Debit & credit This goes also back to the original principles of alchemy of equivalent exchange. So many more examples exist, from physics to math, to chemistry and accounting. Economics also needs this respect of intellectual thought and scientific pursuit. "Equivalent Exchange is the principle that limits alchemy's infinite potential. It's a simple concept: something cannot be created from nothing, and so in order to obtain something, something else of equal value must be lost." - www.cbr.com/fullmetal-alchemist-the-law-of-equivalent-exchange-explained/ This relates back to the principles of production and consumption. Want to eat? well produce cash and then pay for the food to consume it. In math equations and solutions, balance is a necessity. Principles of efficient economic dynamics must abide by these rules of natural law. Just like the flow of water in a river, our economic vessels need healthy flow through for efficient mobility of resources. Human selfish interests and ignorant ideologies often are the creators of blockages in the system's economic vessels. That is when we observe economic problems as we can observe in 2020. Knowledge about the nature of economics is a necessary condition for humans to understand and centralize within their behavioral framework. This will spill over into their actions, better compounding a positive economic outcome. The necessity comes from our need to aim to establish the parameters of the ecosystem within the reality of our collective framework, kind of like establishing the parameters of a game in order to play it properly and have a chance at winning. In this case, in a healthy economy, there is no one winner, but many winners, and that cycles with innovation and time. Understanding these parameters maximizes the purpose of each action taken by an individual. We can better weigh our actions relative to their potential outcomes. Better cost analyses are performed with every conscious action - sort of like economic enlightenment. Whether poor or rich, the same game is being played, the only true difference exists in which framework is being put forth, based on the luck of which environment one comes into existence (culture based on time and place). This is why a healthy economic ecosystem must focus on opportunity (not outcome) to help elevate each man to find reason and purpose in their economic pursuit through life. The economic game breaks down into 3 actionable classifications; 1) production of resources 2) consumption of resources 3) allocation of resources. These 3 economic actions are where humans must focus to maximize their utility and economic expansion. Efficient application of these actions is the game played by all economic entities, whether you are a human or a business, or another form of species on earth. Understanding the dynamics of these actions is critical to playing an economic game. You have 3 forms of actions to choose from in every second of your existence. Just being alive requires you to CONSUME calories as a child to PRODUCE physiological growth, and then you must ALLOCATE your time by learning and understanding as much of the game as possible. Ideally, we want the collective people to be conscious of this to have a maximized output potential, at both a collective and individual level. Take into account the reality that school does not produce this conscious economic output in humans. This is where the argument comes in as to why schools currently are not a good place to allocate your time in relation to most fields of study. Time is a natural physiological resource that respects the law of scarcity hence why we seek to give value to every second of our conscious lives as humans. The principle natural law of scarcity is the very causality of that human intent. As the principles of alchemy, or any other basic mathematical principle, balance is key for human actions to produce a desired outcome in reality. Therefore there is a cost associated with attaining a desired outcome. It is reality, and it is hard, but it is necessary. This allows fairness for all who are trying to play their own game within the collective system. Consumption without production is a deviation from that law. This is where the principles of socialism and progressive left fail, they want to consume the resources produced by others, bypassing their own need to allocate their own resources for their own consumption. They consume without production. Others as a consequence must now work and allocate more of their own resources (time, energy & money) to offset their lack of production. This produces an environment where we get an expanding dependency on the production of others. . This suppresses the economic output of hard working and purposeful people. This then yields minimized innovation and problem solving productivity, because the economic power and resources of productive individuals are re-allocated towards the consumption of non productive individuals. We are fueling the marginalization of productive people, who pursue risk at far greater rates to serve the betterment of others. In the natural world, everyone contributes. In the natural world, the only true time one doesn't need to produce any results and tangible resources is when they are a child. That alone burdens many parents, but imagine a whole system where even adults are incapable of producing themselves. How can the government promise anything when it depends entirely on the productive nature of the economic ecosystem in which they operate. This trend is exponentially expanding with millennials and younger generations. There lays a dark economic reality that could create an implosion from within, like a star. This creates economic gaps and significant dynamic problems within the collective ecosystem. Becoming economically responsible, for ourselves and for the collective is a necessary condition for a healthy ecosystem. You can then compete in the game that all species play; producing, consuming and allocating resources to exist and have a sustainable existence. Once adulthood is attained with the correlated mental development and understanding, we can truly go play in the ecosystems game taking our own lives into our hands, becoming responsible. Help yourself, and you will help the collective. Obviously there will be a spectrum on which people understand these principles, but at least the foundation is focused on in terms of learning. This will produce individuals who better understand the game parameters, and with that foundation, the collective ecosystem's output expands. There are significant economic problems, and its lack of understanding is a primary causality. It is as though we are fish who do not realize we are in water. To give deeper context, lets break down the 2 primary forms of resources that humans pursue and consume through economic actions. 1st form - The first form is physiological resources. Breaks down into 3 primary categories. A - Our genes (a mixed gene pool, the offspring of 2 other set of genes - our parents). That's why strong genes survive, because the nature of evolution deems it a successful and necessary behavior of sustainability. To avoid cancers, or have healthy babies and ensure strong future human offsprings, we want to maintain strong genes. It is a necessary condition in reality for healthy and productive outcomes, especially as a species. This one is important at a collective level to ensure a long lasting species. B - Our body (to grow, have healthy organs, muscles, bones and proper consumption of food resources to produce a desired physiological output - overall health) C - Our mind Experiences Wisdom Consciousness Memories Loved ones Career Fame Friends Happiness These are resources that the mind seeks to accumulate and retain. It drives much of the human purpose. Much of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs falls within the pursuit of the physiological-mind resources driven by the mind's psychology. Many of these mind's pursuits yields the creation/facilitation of new neural network connections to better process short term data being received through our nervous system for it to better penetrate into the long term hemisphere of our human brains 2nd form - The second form is natural/tangible resources. Things such as property, money, precious metals, commodities (rice, sugar, milk, gold, oil, silver, wood...... and the list goes on), food, clothes, businesses, collections (cards, wine, coins, books, stamps). Most of what we consume or allocate our time and energy towards producing as humans. With the application of the mind (physiological resource - humans produce incredible innovative and technological solutions- which serves the betterment of mankind's progress and ascension to apex status). Ever realized that tech requires commodities to function and exist. Cultures and historical problems did a lot to shape that innovative development of humanity. This was accomplished through the application of mental energy to solve problems and innovate utilizing natural resources. The wheel The printing press The first spear The first shield The first sword The first gun The first boat The first man made Fire The internet The first telephone Electricity Oil Lamps Light Bulbs FIrst Computer The list goes on endlessly................................ We as humans, a form of living species on earth are playing by natural law, since there is a common reality shared by the collective, set in stone by the premise of scarcity. When we observe reality, no matter the species, no matter the timeline, the commonality in behavior is found at the mean of an economic purpose. Life is finite; our very existence as a human is scarce. That limited time gives every second consumed value, at least from a living organisms perspective. Again, subconsciously or consciously, that is the common game of organisms. Quotes by the late Walter E. William > "If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn." > "There is no moral argument that justifies using the coercive powers of government to force one person to bear the expense of taking care of another." > "Government has no resources of its own…government spending is no less than the confiscation of one person’s property to give it to another to whom it does not belong." > "We don’t have a natural right to take the property of one person to give to another; therefore, we cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government." > "My definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree?...how much of what I earn belongs to you--and why?" > "No matter how worthy the cause, it is robbery, theft, and injustice to confiscate the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong." > "The better I serve my fellow man…the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That’s the morality of the market." > "The act of reaching into one’s own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else’s pocket is despicable." > "Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good."

FOMO is a very real phenomenon that is very easily identifiable from the eyes of an investor, since the sensations driven by the subconscious fear of missing out tends to produce chaotic and unintended outcomes for unaware investors. When we look at economic law, from the traditional classic perspective, scarcity is a fundamental natural law that even economics, a framework of resource equilibrium must respect. When the markets disconnect from value, what becomes prevalent is the desire for short term price action due to short short term profit desire (greed), beyond what we have naturally been able to produce in wealth. This is why we can argue that the markets primarily in North America have deviated from this law of scarcity. We have done so both psychologically and monetarily. Fake desires fueled by an artificial monetary system driven by political ideologies which abuses the Keynesian framework of economics. As Thomas Sowell says, “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it.” When we humans overindulge in anything in life, they lose value. Psychological bubbles from a market perspective are heavily driven by pure human desire of greed, which distorts efficient capital allocation principles and demonstrates their ignorance of the value of scarcity. We want what we cannot have, it’s a behavior very much apparent in humans, and through that our culture fuels ego and greed. From these cultural inputs we get bubbles that go beyond the realm of reality. That should create questions of the sustainable nature of many asset classes. With observable issues in: - over indebted nations - massive consumer market which fuels the massive equity multiples which do not leave true fundamentally value, unless trading is your desire. - near zero economic landscape for Europe, North America and Japan - over inflated real estate - over inflated equities - over inflated egos - over inflated desires - massive political tension which ripples into the ecosystem since politicians impact monetary and economic policies - less productive younger generations - they are the future labor force of a desired viable and strong economy - socialistic ideologies are continuing to penetrate deeper the political culture of North America (government knows best and government will take care of the people). As a friend of mine said ""when a country asks for more government, when it wants the state to fix all of its problems, it's and indicator that the people of that country are getting weaker, and they are espousing the victimhood mentality. A country of strong people is a country where its government is limited. To limit your government means that you are strong and mature enough to take care of yourself. In America, the people are asking for more government, wanting them to do everything. Well, don't be surprised one day if you end up living in a place where your whole life is pretty much state-mandated. A country only has the leader it deserves: - Germinal G. Van. - worsening education which reflects the future labor capability of the ecosystem These deviations that exist beyond the mean of an efficient market produces forms of chaotic ruptures. When we accept that asset classes and businesses exists within an economic ecosystem, then as an investor, we must respect the laws of economics, and run from areas of the economy that does not respect these fundamental laws, especially if we want to play the long game. Value is the desire of a contrarian. Becoming a contrarian may be a way to play the long game, one where the capital allocation objective operates outside the realm of FOMO and short term price addiction. Many of the in the limelight businesses and asset classes are entering the realms of artificial expansion, especially in price action. Look at the current 2020 covid reality, while the fundamentals of the economy which puts into question the future wealth of the middle class, the equity markets are flying. We have multiples pushing numbers that are out of this world, and do not respect the value of strategic economic allocation of hard earned money. Be careful is the only real warning. When things become more volatile and chaotic, sustaining long periods of time away from the mean equilibrium of economic value, there tends to occur a lot of pain. Life as a human itself demonstrates these patterns to be true,

“A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.” Milton Friedman “The real tragedy of minimum wage laws is that they are supported by well-meaning groups who want to reduce poverty. But the people who are hurt most by higher minimums are the most poverty stricken.” Milton Friedman “Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.” Thomas Sowell “Unskilled and inexperienced workers are the ones most often deprived of employment opportunities by increases in the minimum wage.” Ron Paul “Remember that the minimum wage law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result.” Murray Rothbard Minimum wages reduce low-skilled employment by making it more expensive, therefor the experience of the individual becomes a significant variable. Those mostly impacted are new, young and poor employment seeking individuals because of their lack of experience. The cost is above the value of their labor, therefore they are undesirable; from a labor markets perspective.This enforcement, which is rooted in what is said to be good intentions has the unintended consequence of pricing other groups out of the labor market. That set price becomes a barrier to those beneath it, by now prioritizing more experienced people because this is a much better return for $. A business must be rational for the purpose of continuity. The experienced and more educated/qualified people are more favorable as a result. This creates an unequitable playing field for all to compete for labor, since some have been priced out; enhanced barrier to entry, and therefore harder to compete in labor market, leveraging true input value to the enterprise. The current environment with minimum wages puts some groups at an advantage while others at a disadvantage. That is not a fair playing field, and yet that is the intent of a fair ecosystem. Poor communities such as black ones are proportionally put at a disadvantage. Removing that barrier levels the playing field, where people can pay what they can pay and provide labor experience at fair value to those willing, whom otherwise would have no opportunity. It is hard to dispute the need for removal of such interventions when you see that this hurts those we supposedly desire most to uplift economically. Well let them use their cheaper value to get opportunities and experience, so they can eventually climb the economic ladder. Without that experience and that opportunity, it becomes much more difficult, and unattainable to start that economic journey. They can only gain from this, at least in my cost analysis of intent versus outcome. Removing the barrier would help price out lazy expensive labor, but that’s also good for overall ecosystem health. We humans and every social structure operate in an economic ecosystem where everything has a cost, since we must always allocate some form of resource to obtain desired results. A good intention does not imply it is beneficial when compared to the costs/trade-offs of that good intention. Cannot really get any decent experience now without having a form of education which the government heavily directs that narrative. Costly and low quality is the major 2 characteristics of the western worlds output of students and labor force recently. The resulted dynamics of minimum wage created this barrier preventing one effective opportunistic means of gaining life and work experience. This funnels people to needing to obtain higher levels of an outdated education, followed by landing minimum wage jobs at 20+ years old because they don't have any labor market value other than pieces of paper. We can all agree that experience matters, and therefor, so does the lack of it also matter. This intervention comes from a place of good intentions initially; or at least I like to believe so. To this day, nearly a century later of continuous work on these minimum wage enforcements has continued to maintain a positive perspective by the people. We look through the eyes of the intent, but by being focused only on that perceptive, we forget to look at the outcome of such interventions. One needs to work to gain experience and grow to seek higher value for their labor capabilities. This should produce eventual success into gaining entry into a vibrant economic ecosystem where a lot of money is flowing. That success comes by adding value, and with time an exponentially growing individual with value; as a business should do with their customers or as an employee with their employer. The cost of an individual's experience and capabilities or lack of it alone should be the condition within a given ecosystem to weigh (type of business/industry/position). Another unintended consequence is one looking at the effect on the cost of living. When minimum wage increases, labor expense becomes more expensive year over year, therefore, in order for the businesses in the ecosystem to not end up being reduced to 0% margins, they must increase costs proportionally. Rational outcome. Consumers within those ecosystems as a result end up paying higher prices because of inflation through minimum wage laws. Remember that big economic ecosystems have a lot of small and medium businesses which employ many. This also drives up employment costs for more experienced people since everyone hopes to at least an increase in income proportionally to inflation, since the minimum price flooring is moving higher. With these effects, businesses will employ less people and/or burden individuals with heavier work load to reduce costs while trying to maintain same output, which can impact quality as a result also. Or they can simply increase costs for the consumers to offset the annual increases in their costs. We cannot always blame businesses for doing what they must to survive. There are people who depend on the viability and sustainability of that business to survive in an economic ecosystem. Yes you could make the argument "well what about people who will get played and exploited?". Alright then, lets analyze that fear through. A simple solution is flipping the responsibility off the government and putting it on the ignorant individuals whom operate in an economic framework - aka the citizens. Whether they like it or not, it is fact that we operate in an economic framework. If the people had the opportunity to be properly educated, our youth entering our economic ecosystem; even though it is a challenging one, would yield continuity moving forward in a more balanced, equitable and fair manner. That is far more balanced and optimal desire for all. Everyone's purpose in life is accumulating memories, wealth, strength, status, food, clothes, cars, tools, experience and knowledge, family, a place to call home, friends.... you name it. They are finite, therefore we seek to maximize the accumulation of these resources to ensure we can enjoy the things we want to, which is a luxury in our day and age. Well that purpose to accumulate and do something in exchange drives us to exchange time, capital or goods to accumulate those things. You need to eat. You need a safe place to eat. You need a means to offer value to some other social entity in exchange for capital to obtain basic needs. Whether as an entrepreneur creating a business needing clients or as an employee (laborer) offering their experience and capabilities to the enterprise. Oh and don't forget it should also be the way the government seeks to add value to its stakeholders which are all the individuals and enterprises of the ecosystem. They should desire a smart and capable ecosystem. Sort of operating like a socially responsible enterprise always seeking to enhance the value of their stakeholders. Alignment. All facing in the same direction (strength) rather than facing each other (chaos). Would simply empowering the citizens themselves with an actual reflective education where they can navigate the system not be something positive? Teach them to fish and they know how to repeat the positive outcome, gaining a footing on sustainably accumulating a resource; feed them yourself and they will be back for more. Seems relatable as a story of citizens in an economic ecosystem with the Government's economic grasp. In this case, citizens are not being taught to fish. If we just elevated our understanding as a collective of operating in an economic framework by ensuring the work of our educational system creates that output. Applying the principles of a zone of proximal development, its primary purpose in my opinion is to create alignment with reality of the dynamics of our ecosystem and the role of a human within. From a primal economic framework to a smart collaborative economic framework (capitalism - but true capitalism, not socialistic capitalism which fuels evil enterprises to leverage government rules and officials to gain an advantage). Now lets flip this analysis of the unintended consequences and look at the outcome it has for the government. Putting into place a minimum wage has no cost on the government, but does have a cost for many people, as per my analysis above demonstrates, supported by many others like the work of those who's quotes I reference at the beginning. Even though the intent is good, there is a misplaced understanding of the true economic effects of minimum wages. From the Government’s perspective, this yields increased tax revenues. More income to tax and more sales tax as a result of increased costs. They still produce favorable effects for their pockets. More money is enforced to be given to employees, which then they simply end up being taxed more and spend more from the increase in cost of living. As a result of that enforcement, a form of Zero sum result appears to the pockets of those it’s suppose to benefit. I only see one social entity winning from this, and it's not any common man or business. They artificially seem to unintendedly induce their own chaos to maintain divisive control as a framework, as though the invisible hand of the government dynamics are designed to be intrusive to that extent. The government’s framework as a whole plays all sides, always offering out favors for votes and money. If that isn't fair play, I don't know what is. But oddly enough, they say they will fight that while allowing the same framework which allows those behaviours to thrive to remain complicit. It’s framework behaves as though political power is the best way to ensure an outcome, but it most usually comes at a cost. As mentioned above, there are clearly observable costs putting others at a disadvantage while creating an undesirable advantage for others with no real cashflow increase since expenditure also grows. These realities do not allow the ecosystem to interact and engage through fair play. We want our framework to produce equitable environments which would be far more sustainable for the collective. The true framework of the game of life within a collective social environment requires each to do their own part for sustainability purposes; which yes also exists within the economic framework. To optimize our framework, government's hold over the economy must be released, giving economic power back to the individuals. There is no true framework that has been set which aligns both collective pursuit and individual pursuit with the fairest rules. Government acts like it doesn't want its citizens to gain economic power, or that it believes if the governing structure is strong, then through perception so are the people of that nation. This couldn’t be more wrong. That is simply perception. In my reality, gaining economic power appears to be the key factor in establishing freedom. When you go above scarcity, an economic principle within its game, you are free from government chaos and their visible hand. If the intent is to have that opportunity for all to climb at their best ability while all respecting fair equitable dynamics, then why not release control where we can visibly see the undesirable effects. It’s not like the educational system teaches people the reality of an economic ecosystem such as ours. I wonder why? Proper financial and economic education would yield a more optimal economic citizen, strengthening the labor market and its productivity. But this would yield negative consequences for the size of the governments role in maintaining economic power. When you are at the mercy of the invisible hand of positive human dynamics, look at all the incredible tools and innovative wonders our humanity is capable off. The power of the individual to add value to the ecosystem. When we are at the mercy of government intervention and regulation, we cannot have an ecosystem in equilibrium. This is not to say that it does not have that role, but rather to question where that role is optimal and undesirable. Since everything they do has a cost, it is very easy to see the outcomes of their behaviours which operate on an economic framework of consuming, producing and allocating resources; the flow of capital and resources. Funny enough, it appears hard to audit the government's financial behaviors in real time, so only its outcomes can be observed, making them very weak evolutionary since they cannot adapt quickly to live behavioural and economic dynamics. That weakness translates over into the masses since they are the controller to our economic ecosystem, which appears to be a growing issue as a result. Just look at our reality in 2020. The outcomes of similar actions such as minimum wage is where we can both behaviourally and economically align an argument for removing minimum wages. This creates a fairer pricing market and removes pressure from new, young and poor people to seek employment to start building experience and climb the economic ladder. With that, in my opinion, it simply creates undesirable chaos, artificially creating a sense of safety net that only a few can benefit from since others have been priced out. I can clearly see the pattern of negative ripples by these unfair conditions in an environment which seeks to have a desirable, fair and equitable playing field. Not the current reality though, a century later. If its broken, clearly it has to be changed, what do we have to lose at this point either way? The issues highlighted are only worsening, so simply hoping it will go away is not enough. There is need for a serious fundamental shift in our understanding of government role in the economy. This triggers gaps that we can now observe live in 2020 within major cities where employment for low skilled positions are deviated from new, young and poor people, widening the economic gap of those at the bottom. What would be a great advantage over others purely from the lack of experience, becomes their kryptonite with the barrier of minimum wage. This is why it is said by expert economists and public theory scientists that minimum wage has significant unintended consequences. Yes it is a good intent, but a costs analysis brings to light the effects of such desires. This argument has been made for half a century by some incredible minds, yet their voice has never reached mass awareness.

@ho33es doing a great job illustrating perspectives and philosophy. Economic data is based on the basis of collective analytics to best evaluate the cause and effects of ecosystem dynamics and decisions, whether socially, economically or politically driven, Through weighing those analytics, which are quantified human dynamics, we can more effectively observe and optimize our collective economic framework. Even good intentions yield terrible outcomes for the collective, and often the referenced reasoning used to provide context as to why the free market principles would yield healthier collective outcomes without the desire of wanting controlled outcomes that the ecosystem hasn't naturally developed. Something believed and held by institutions such as Chicago school of economics and hoover institute, as well from individuals such as Adam Smith, Ludwig Von Mises, Milton Friedman and Walter E Williams to name a few. The dynamics of our ecosystem's economic framework must be developed on a collective principle which allows optimal fair play at an individual level. One that respects the principles of reality such as output versus input; consumption versus production; taking and giving; suffering to grow; equivalent exchange; return on investment; evolution and limited resources. If one is put at a disadvantage to make another gain an advantage, the rules of the game are by default not fair for anyone. The premise of an equitable and fair economic framework requires an effective and optimal market to bring balance to the collective people's economic pursuit to accumulate resources and allocate them as they see fit in the pursuit of their personal interests. A game with rules that cannot change to please the endless groups of self interest. These groups cause constant chaotic unintended consequences in the ecosystem which yields undesirable collective disadvantages. For this specific statement in relation to unintended consequences, refer to the school of thought by those named previously for countless examples. The intent of the ecosystem's economic framework must be to be the best you while allowing others to be the best them, not imposing the perspective of the few on the reality of the collective, so all can play the game of accumulating resources (even experiences are resources which requires capital resources). Often time, to ease the reality of the few, one must reallocate resources from the many to the few through regulations, control and taxation, something the government has fueled as a framework for far too long. Even selfish business interests prevail under this framework, because the government can be leveraged by those with already resources to further enhance their game. That is a consequence as a result of government playing the power game, and having their pockets exposed to all sides of the issue . This is not a new philosophy, it is one originated from Adam Smith, whom is revered as the father of economics. But the current reality of our dynamics does not reflect his belief in entirety. The potential output of his true image of a fair, free and equitable ecosystem has not been seen because we’ve never come close to applying its main principles, only a portion. For those principles to surface, it would require a release of control from government's ego which assumes it is the economic driver of a healthy, strong and sustainable economic ecosystem. Clearly it has not yielded that, because it burdened the collective by fueling the individual reality of "I'm Significant" as shown in the above illustration. Those consequences are easily observable now in 2020, even in the past through the eyes of those mentioned above with all the social and economic chaos rippling through the western world. The reality is, the desire of people and businesses to add value to the ecosystem solving problems and being charitable appears to have had far more good for the progression of not only individual wealth, but for human expansion also. There lays the argument that the accumulation of resources yields more freedom, since one has more resources to be independent and do the things they want, unworried about government ego to be a relevant factor in all facets of human life. That argument is to give power to the individual, to be free to pursue his own interests, at his own risk while respecting the dynamics of a free market ecosystem of the collective whom all have equal weight as human beings; this fuels entrepreneurship spirit which is so important in the ecosystem for expansion, and helping lift up humanity. There are forms of negative self interest which do not respect healthy dynamics with unintended negative consequences, such as unions and minimum wage. The purpose of the collective economic game being played with the ecosystem must focus on minimizing the negative self interests versus optimizing the flexibility of the positive self interest pursuits. Our understanding of the relationship the government has with a healthy and sustainable economy is off and in need of a huge collective awakening. A complete rewiring of the relationship must be educated to the future players of the ecosystem. This requires a collective shift, a true democratic & majority shift to an ecosystem where people are economically rewarded when adding value to others. Create new demands and solve problems, from there watch the invisible hand of a human ecosystem do its magic, as Adam Smith preached and studied through his work. Ω @ho33es for the illustration. The arrows and titles is my own doing, not one expressed by @ho33es. This is my interpretation of this illustration, bringing a philosophical analysis of perspectives in an economic ecosystem.

Some Economic highlights and commentary for Canadians to illustrate some harsh realities looking forward for Millennials especially as the next apex generation coming into power inheriting a huge role. These are highlights the government doesn’t talk about to continue to either hold economic control over the people or they are just that ignorant to their own involvement over the economic output of our country. There is no real discussion occurring and those to be heavily burdened are the current youth and Millennials of the future economic landscape of this country. Net Federal Debt = $1.2 Trillion Deficit for 2020-21 rises to $343.2 billion from $34.4 billion projected before pandemic. Federal debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to rise to 49% in 2020-21 from 31% With low Interests, debt of Canadians will continue to rise, adding more liabilities to the Canadian economy’s books. We have a probable outlook of aggressive inflation as a consequence of the ignorant economic manipulation of government intervention, with all this giving of money and no analysis on the long term trade offs . Their actions are driving costs up squeezing citizens (hard working people) margins. With less capital left over to keep for themselves and to build/strengthen their own personal balance sheets. The people of the economy is the baseline for a strong economy. Why is the government weakening its citizens and thus the economy? Why do they keep seeking enhanced control with clearly a history of inability? There is always unforeseen economic consequences that the people as a collective must burden, while government continues to use lack of capital as reasoning for further control in the environment to promise short term solutions. Those elected by the majority, making significant decisions with always unforeseen consequences driven by the endless amount of self interest minority groups. Its a broken cycle with endless economic consequences. Millennials are consumers, not producers. This is a very important distinction to understand the future power of our dollar as an economy. The purchasing power of a country. Most political decisions are at the mercy of the future economy to provide a short term smokescreen without talking about the consequences. It is a game of politics for votes. A high school popularity contest, about what they can promise and evade in the short term. Good politics is bad economics as the great Peter Schiff states. Clearly, this is observable. Just need to do a snapshot of the 2020 economy and backtest it. All the dynamics light up and you can observe the broken pattern occurring yielding us to this current economic reality. Wages aren’t increasing meanwhile cost of living is going up and so is the amount of taxes we pay as a consequence. Many of the unnecessary regulations and policies implemented on the many by endless minority groups keeps adding costs to our system, therefore more revenues needed by the state. Taxes are also an issue when abused. What produces workers is the business market, that requires people to pursue ways to add value to the market by solving problems, producing value to the economy. When government implements higher business taxes, those with very good business margins can easily adapt and continue to thrive. But now when you look at businesses with high operational cost, they tend to have smaller margins. Especially when people try to create ventures and business start ups, they need every $ to try and grow to become a viable business that can compete and sustainability add value to the economy. So once you establish that those at the starting line and with heavier costs on their shoulders suffer the most from these taxes, you have to ask yourself, who’s truly winning with these added taxes that only makes it harder for those at the bottom to climb the mountain. There appears to be a perpetual cycle of pressure on those at the bottom of the economic ladder, one driven by many political economic policies and decisions. If businesses pay more in taxes and costs, they can’t give back more to their employees because they also need to worry about cashflow in order to survive long term. You cannot expect a business to survive through hard times with tiny margins. This trickles down to the workers who keep paying more with costs going up, so without more income growth (if small and medium businesses who employ the most in an economy have less money, well then so will most of its employees). With stagnated income (since businesses at the middle and at the bottom can't grow, neither does employment income), and increasing costs from government manipulation, the citizen's margins get destroyed. Each citizen must be seen as a business, with personal financials as their analytical tool. More money keeps going from citizens to government with nothing but economic problems spiraling out of control. And no results to validate their continued increase in tax collections, except by adding more promises to problems they often time cause through their own policies. The states economic power has only increased over time (more money keeps flowing to them), and with their obsession over control, they are suppressing incredible human capability to pursue incredible ways to add good to a collective in their own way. Suppressing the economic landscape is suppressing entrepreneurial spirit. A strong, growing and fair economy requires that ability to be accountable and take risks. Our humanity alone shows the incredible power of our problem solving capabilities. Lets find a way to remove the lid off those capabilities, that human drive. Health care is out of control (weak and costly) —-> In 2019, total health expenditure in Canada was expected to reach $264 billion, or $ 7,068 per person. It is anticipated that, overall, health spending represented 11.6% of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP). https://www.cihi.ca/en/health-spending - seriously question how does our money get spent and where. I say where because you cannot even go audit their financials and costs related to our health care or any other major Government industries they control. Its fairy dust, lol. Its sad and funny at the same time. Education is out of control (weak and costly) > Canada’s school boards spent a total of $53.2 billion — about $11,300 per student — educating students in kindergarten to Grade 12 public systems in 2015 and that amount has been growing by more than $1 billion every year for several years. 2018-2019 Tax revenues at the Federal Level were $332.2 Billion > with covid, this number will dip, at least I’m assuming with loss jobs, and recession. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/services/publications/annual-financial-report/2019/report.html Real estate is facing a huge bubble, with the way prices are inflating and now with low interests pushing more to buy without taking into account future interests being higher to offset this low period. Balance is key in economics and thus the argument for higher interests later on is hard to dispute. With no economic growth, no growth in wages, more taxes being paid out, and continued weakness of individual citizen balance sheets, there is a huge bubble building with no fundamental support to the disaster broiling. In technical finance, you always see when gaps get created, and gaps must be closed. This economic bubble will have to collapse for us to cycle into a more effective economic expansion. I could keep writing endlessly highlighting issues. It's insane and scary. We need to get our shit together as the collective people. If the majority of people can understand the Economic game put forth in front of them, as a whole this economy would be much healthier, stronger and charitable to those in need. Nicholas Tartaglia

Ladies, We are in a new era. The past is behind us all, but let's not forget it so we do not regress to our past flaws. By this, all i wish to imply is that women have stepped up their damn game, to deny that or to not embrace that reality, is at your own downfall. Because, let’s not forget, money and financial independence is power, and women should be more ambitious to attain that freedom. After all, as a male myself, it is what drives me more than anything else to be an investor, as well as many of my fellow male friends. Even as a millennial, there is still an observable gap seen between the genders. With that said, let's just get straight into the statistics when looking at women and their finances, for the data should provide some insight into their financial outlook and mindset. “Two major trends are profoundly impacting women. One, women are living longer than men. Two, nearly half of marriages are likely to end in divorce, with rising rates among couples over 50. Inevitably, many women will become widows or divorcees—and eight out of 10 women will be solely responsible for their financial well-being.Some women will be ready, and many won’t.” 61% of millennial women defer investing and financial planning to spouses, as opposed to 54% with older generations (this is regression)- according to a survey by UBS Group AG. Meanwhile The Swiss bank found that younger women are more likely than earlier generations to give such leeway to their partners, more than any other generation. The mindset flaw in this is, most women are quite content with their backseat role when it comes to investing and financial planning. To this I ask why? When compared with men, women are much less likely to invest their savings — and as such, women miss out on significant wealth growth. In a survey conducted from Fidelity Investments, only 29% of women said they see themselves as investors. In another research, women are not only more likely to answer financial literacy questions incorrectly, but they also disproportionately answer those questions with “I do not know.” A new analysis finds that women are far more likely than men to face financial hardship in retirement. A report released today by the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) finds that across all age groups, women have substantially less income in retirement than men, with figures showing that women are 80% more likely to be impoverished in retirement. More than half of divorcees and widows discover financial surprises, such as outdated wills and debts, and previous UBS research shows that 85% of couples will need long-term care during their lifetimes, with most women outliving their husbands. This can lead to women's greatest fear of becoming a burden to their children Six in 10 widows and divorcees regret not participating more in long-term financial decisions - and they hold themselves accountable. Even women who say they were meaningfully involved wish they had done more Ladies, you keep striving for higher levels of professionalism and status in this world, fighting for equal rights and equal opportunities...... but once you make that money and obtain that success academically or professionally, what are you doing with your money after? Your education is progressing and surpassing that of the male counterparts, your ambition for careers are clearly visible, but your financial development seems to be falling apart. If that falls apart, then there will always exist a sense of dependence on the male partner for the most critical decisions of your lives. Worse part of that is, your male counterpart may not even be that financially literate, yet he will have more sway on the value of your dollar than yourself, simply because of that subconscious dependence on ‘your man’. You earn it, learn to keep it and make your money work for yourself also. Continue down the value chain, don't stop once you get that degree, don't stop after you establish a career, just don't stop. It's as though women lack confidence, leading them to fail at implementing a financial plan and focusing too much on cash and materials. This mindset implies that ‘your man’ will ensure when and how you retire, after all, if he has more control over the money, how can you control that outcome yourself? Public markets are open to everyone of any gender, with advisers out there also happy to represent your own worth individually. As an investor, the markets don't care about our genders, male or female, it's all the same, so only you are holding yourself back. Go be proactive with your own money. The reality of much of the data on poverty and widows is based on the older generations, born prior to the 80's. As such, for women born in the 80’s and after, this should not be seen as the reality of the future landscape for you guys, because the landscape is shifting, but to an extent, since millennial women are not striving down the value chain to be in control of their own money afterwards. You are an important part of the economy now, working and earning your own money, which will directly impact the future financial data more positively for the female gender, just don't forget to give yourself more worth economically. The stronger you are independently, the stronger the economy is as a whole, so, even though I am a male, i see no reason not to want to see you kill it financially. The purpose of this was not to create a response of fear, rather to make you understand the data on the older generations, so you can aim for better. Continue to aim to fuel the financial progression of your own individual wealth, for that will create a greater separation from your male counterparts, therefore true freedom and independence. Do not regress, do not get lazy, value the worth of your dollar, and your financial future can reflect that of the male counterparts. Money provides true independence from anything or anyone, so go for it. If you want an example of a business woman in the finance industry carving her own path, go check NewGen Mindset’s episode 4 with guest Genevieve Roch-Decter, CEO of Grit Capital. Can get some insight in the episode, so go to Spotify and search up NewGen Mindset. More info at www.newgenmindset.com.

Written by: Nicholas Tartaglia April 5th, 2020 Before we dive into this short analysis on the validity of whether 5G is good or bad, you must first forget any biased opinion on the subject you may hold and open yourself up to a critical perspective. Matters like this need to be open for discussion and analysis, since any potential risks can impact us. We are all stakeholders of our society and the evolution it is experiencing, therefore it is important for us to be objective as a whole. Given that we are in the 21st century, year 2020, for conspiracy theories to continue being prevalent, is an issue, since it creates more chaos and confusion. We are far more connected, on a scale far beyond we would have ever imagined. Easy accessibility to vast amounts of data has allowed the scientific community to strengthen itself on levels never seen before. From cross analyzing vast amounts of research, peer reviews, working alongside experts across the globe and being held accountable for what you put out as a scientist by the strong and respected community. That’s the power we want it to have and project, it's at our own benefit as a society. The reality is that nowadays, if the vast scientific communities, consisting of leading bodies of professional experts, agree on something, it is far more plausible they are right than wrong. Or in the very least, that they are leading us in the right direction with their conclusions, because their conclusion of the subject holds far more weight. There is no room for ego on a personal level, let it go, be critical, and understand how our individual perception of a system can do us more damage than good. For some odd reason, we often tend to agree with things that are concluded and theorized by the scientific community, yet however, in other areas, we challenge the world experts and leading bodies, when we hold no expert knowledge, and tend to hold biased pre-disposed ideas, selectively choosing data that confirms our own ideas. That is the furthest thing from being an objective individual who wants to add value to the system, because seeking to simply be right degrades the integrity of seeking the truth. To provide an external example, look at climate change and GMO’s. We are quick to accept the scientific data showing we are damaging the planet, and criticize those who oppose the scientific community, but when that same community says GMO’s have no health hazard, we become experts and skeptics. Is it confusing to anyone else, or am I alone? Other than having a preconceived bias to an opinion, what internally triggers disbelief in one subject over another? The following reason summarizes what I believe to be the reason; "confirmation bias is our most treasured enemy. Our opinions, our acumen - all of it, are the result of years of selectively choosing to pay attention to that information only which confirms what our limited minds already accept as the truth" - Ina Catrinescu. There is no logic in that, buffet picking information, and projecting your opinion, that holds no validity since you were not objective to begin with. Reactions such as those, make me wonder as to why you would accept ANYTHING at all from our scientific communities. If you refuse to believe in the system, or to be open to constructive and objective dialogue, then your opinion should hold NO VALUE in the context of an academic discussion to further our knowledge. Pursue the facts, and not the egotistic desire to be right. Now, to those who believe there is a link between 5G and hazardous health consequences regardless of what the scientific bodies have to say, forget your right to an opinion for a moment. Random biased opinions should hold no value in a subject that should be dictated by nothing other than the evidence that is analyzed and criticized by leading bodies of experts who voice their insight on the subject, publicly putting their reputation on the line, open to criticism from the public, government and their academic peers. That previous sentence is an opinion, without a doubt, but one I believe to be formed on logic, and one that explains why we put more weight into certain groups’ opinions over others. As Bruce Lee so famously says; “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend". The same can be said with evidence and expert insight. Form your judgement and opinions based on that of the community that work to that specific end of providing more accurate and justified evidence for the betterment of this world. As evidence grows and evolves, so do we with it. Logic and rational needs to prevail in the academic world, or else the root of that system has failed us and our future. The academic community depends on itself as a form of trust system to keep scientists accountable and the information as relative as possible for accuracy. Remember that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - Martin Rees. Scientists are fully aware that as an expert and respectable scientist, adhering to this belief is critical to their success of being a part of the progression of human advancement. Although biases are a human flaw, the objective of any researcher and scientist is to be as critical and unbiased as possible. Okay, so, let's take a look at which leading bodies of experts have to say; IARC - International Agency for Research on Cancer; a department of the World Health Organization with the primary role to direct international health within the United Nations' system and to lead partners in global health responses. The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radio-frequency electromagnetic fields as POSSIBLY carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless phone use.The conclusion means that there COULD be some risk, and therefore WE NEED TO KEEP A CLOSE WATCH FOR A LINK THAT CURRENTLY DOESN’T EXIST BETWEEN CELL PHONES AND CANCER RISK. They are NOT saying "NO!", they are saying that at this current moment, with our understanding of frequency waves in relation to health effects and of the technology aspect of it, there is NO consistent and significant evidence (that is peer reviewed by a variety of scientific experts across the globe) showing that we are risking our lives for the purpose of technological advancement. FDA - The Food And Drug Administration; is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. "The totality of the available scientific evidence continues NOT to support adverse health effects in humans caused by exposures at or under the current radio-frequency energy exposure limits." CDC - Center for Disease Control and Prevention; is the leading national public health institute of the United States. The CDC is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services "At this time we do NOT have the science to link health problems to cell phone use. Scientific studies are underway to determine whether cell phone use may cause health effects." FC - The Federal Communications Commission; is an independent government organization that runs from the proceeds of regulatory fines in its regulation of radio, TV, wire and satellite communications. "There is NO scientific evidence to date that proves that wireless phone usage can lead to cancer or a variety of other health effects, including headaches, dizziness or memory loss." NIH - The National Institute of Health; NIH is one of the world's foremost medical research centers. An agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH is the Federal focal point for health and medical research, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives. "There is currently NO consistent evidence that non-ionizing radiation increases cancer risk in humans." To add another study into the conclusions of these experts, one they referred to, a study conducted simply tracking the annual rates of new brain cancers between 1999-2015 in the United States remained consistent, with no clear increase of any kind. Has there not been a clear and apparent increase in cell phone usage in our daily lives between that period of time? Based on that study alone, is there not a link missing, since we are supposed to have had increased brain cancers as a result? As far as my ability to analyze evidence goes, I'm not seeing a definite conclusion that IT IS bad. Just like in investing for the future value of your dollar, see the future value in the belief system or theory you develop that shifts your perspective of something significant (5G for example). To believe it is bad implies a mistrust in one of 2 ways; 1- That companies are evil, paying off governments and scientific bodies of experts across the world to lie, or 2- That the scientific community at this day and age, year 2020, after everything we have accomplished, is so weak, and incapable of both objectively analyzing and criticizing evidence. Everything is on the radioactive scale, yes even our body is naturally radioactive, and we are exposed to radio waves both natural and human made.The whole communication and tech sectors are moving forward, or at least would like to. I provided a list of scientific bodies and now here are some companies such as; Qualcomm, Verizon, Sprint, LG, Samsung, GOOGLE, Apple, Facebook, Tesla and the list goes on with names of companies that are working forward with a plan for the future of 5G. So for those who say "YES it’s bad", you are not only opposing the academic scientific community, but also some of the biggest and brightest companies in the world calling them evil ignorant beings. Do you really believe that there are that many people at such high social-economic levels, to be so ignorant of the facts you claim are prevalent? Do you believe these human beings hate their children, their children' children, couldn’t care less for any of their futures, and just simply want to throw away their legacy they’ve worked so hard for, that they would WANT to just put everyone's lives at risk? If it was bad, and it was concluded that there is sufficient and significant evidence to link it to negative health consequences, why would these guys still continue to surround themselves with their own technology that is supposedly so harmful to humans? Are they not also humans with the same physical weaknesses? Are they simply rich suicidal evil beings? I myself, am tired of all this mistrust because it doesn’t serve any objective purpose. I choose to see some value and integrity in the system we have, look at how far we’ve come. The more we work together with the system, the more we can strengthen it as a whole. We are an intelligent species, let us act as such. If you are one who believes there is a link, after everything I have demonstrated and provided, I hope to have sparked a different thought on 5G. SOURCES https://www.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr208_E.pdf https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/cell-phones/scientific-evidence-cell-phone-safety https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/brain.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1hkv2Upww&feature=youtu.be